Gorbachev’s death: Berlin should name a place after him – opinion

Germany should give a lasting thank you to the man who made its unity possible. There is an excellent opportunity for this in the capital.

There is little to criticize about the Bundestag’s plans for Wednesday. The President of the Bundestag will certainly give a good speech, the Federal President will give special weight to the moment by his presence, the flags in the Reichstag will be at half-mast. It will be a decent commemoration of Mikhail Gorbachev – and at the same time the least that one can expect from Germany. More would have been conceivable: a funeral service with a speech by the head of state, and the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Kirill Petrenko, playing Shostakovich or Tchaikovsky. But such an idea, if it seriously existed, has been discarded. But that in no way means that the few minutes in the Bundestag should be enough.